That actually reminds me of kind of a similar situation about 20 years ago. I was out on a patio with friends at their house and a bunch of kids were running around. One toddler was trying to walk up a steep step, wobbled at the top, and then started to pitch over backward. Given the top-heaviness of toddlers, she was heading toward the concrete patio head first. I dove forward with my arms out and she landed perfectly in my outstretched arms, one hand under her back and Ike hand cradling her head, inches above the concrete. I have no idea how I did it - just pure luck and adrenaline. Her parents looked at me like I was god
Wow! Great story, good catch, lucky kid!!!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
I love elephants. They come across as personable, playful, and friendly. I wish we didn't ride them and kill them for their ivory.
1995 Milwaukee 1998 Alpine, Alpine 2003 Albany, Boston, Boston, Boston 2004 Boston, Boston 2006 Hartford, St. Paul (Petty), St. Paul (Petty) 2011 Alpine, Alpine 2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
I love elephants. They come across as personable, playful, and friendly. I wish we didn't ride them and kill them for their ivory.
when my kids were really young, we took them to the circus. against my better judgement, i took one of my kids on an elephant ride. i have always regretted it. i suppose if anything good came of it, it's retelling my kids the story and how wrong it was and how awful zoos are.
I love elephants. They come across as personable, playful, and friendly. I wish we didn't ride them and kill them for their ivory.
when my kids were really young, we took them to the circus. against my better judgement, i took one of my kids on an elephant ride. i have always regretted it. i suppose if anything good came of it, it's retelling my kids the story and how wrong it was and how awful zoos are.
I've always been fascinated by elephants as well.
Several years ago I read about the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, so we signed up for a basic membership and have done their feed an elephant for a day donation a few times as well. The news letter they send (hard copy or digital) is great. You get to keep up with the latest on the "girls". It's really cool to see what Tara or Billie, and the others are up to. Of course, once in a while, you know, they get old and and you hear about it and you cry. But most of them live a good long life (Billie is 58!) and a much better life now because most were abused or were circus animals, etc. They have it good now!
I love elephants. They come across as personable, playful, and friendly. I wish we didn't ride them and kill them for their ivory.
when my kids were really young, we took them to the circus. against my better judgement, i took one of my kids on an elephant ride. i have always regretted it. i suppose if anything good came of it, it's retelling my kids the story and how wrong it was and how awful zoos are.
I've always been fascinated by elephants as well.
Several years ago I read about the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, so we signed up for a basic membership and have done their feed an elephant for a day donation a few times as well. The news letter they send (hard copy or digital) is great. You get to keep up with the latest on the "girls". It's really cool to see what Tara or Billie, and the others are up to. Of course, once in a while, you know, they get old and and you hear about it and you cry. But most of them live a good long life (Billie is 58!) and a much better life now because most were abused or were circus animals, etc. They have it good now!
I love elephants. They come across as personable, playful, and friendly. I wish we didn't ride them and kill them for their ivory.
when my kids were really young, we took them to the circus. against my better judgement, i took one of my kids on an elephant ride. i have always regretted it. i suppose if anything good came of it, it's retelling my kids the story and how wrong it was and how awful zoos are.
I've always been fascinated by elephants as well.
Several years ago I read about the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, so we signed up for a basic membership and have done their feed an elephant for a day donation a few times as well. The news letter they send (hard copy or digital) is great. You get to keep up with the latest on the "girls". It's really cool to see what Tara or Billie, and the others are up to. Of course, once in a while, you know, they get old and and you hear about it and you cry. But most of them live a good long life (Billie is 58!) and a much better life now because most were abused or were circus animals, etc. They have it good now!
I admit I haven't (yet) listened to this in its entirety, but I dig the premise and the bits I've heard thus far. Plus, Byrne's music - hell, he himself - makes me happy. Could be worth a gander. It's more than two years old, but I find it apt now more than ever.
A win-win-win story that seems best here, though it could have gone in the covid thread, or one of the environment threads. Kudos to our provincial government for funding an effort that cleaned up 127 tonnes of marine debris from very remote areas and provided employment to tour boat operators, their staff, and some First Nations communities, who would otherwise have had almost zero revenue in this summer of no tourism.
Tour ship operators collect 127 tonnes of marine debris
Tour ship companies anchored by the pandemic traded their usual tourists for mountains of trash, collecting 127 tonnes of marine waste along the central coast of British Columbia.
The effort involved the captains and crew of the Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C., nine sailing ships, members of six First Nations, 18 Zodiac vessels, a helicopter and a massive barge.
Among the items picked from remote shores were massive chunks of Styrofoam, kilometres of plastic rope, fishing floats, bottles, gas cans and bundles of “ghost” fishing nets that kill and injure fish, whales, birds and other marine animals.
Over 42 days and 1,000 kilometres of coast line, the project collected enough to twice fill a hockey-rink sized barge with bags of debris piled like small mountains. It was offloaded at Port Hardy and trucked to 7-mile Landfill, a former mine near Port McNeill.
The $3.5-million cleanup, financed by the provincial government’s Clean Coast Clean Waters Fund, far exceeded expectations.
Kevin Smith, captain of Victoria-based Maple Leaf Adventures and team lead, said the cleanup saved the tourism companies, whose season was cancelled because of COVID-19, and provided employment for more than 100 crew and Indigenous community members. The final grab of trash also greatly surpassed initial estimates of 20 to 30 tonnes.
“This was an industrial-sized cleanup, something that’s never been done before, and it was an incredible team effort,” Smith said.
“It’s not like walking along Long Beach. This is the wild side of the coast pummeled by storms. It’s rugged, steep, treacherous. We’re moving enormous logs and finding drift netting that’s a half a mile long, and cutting it into sections to get it out.”
The so-called ghost nets can entangle whales, fish and birds, which sink and die. The nets are known to refloat after the animals rot away, again posing a threat.
Smith said about two thirds of the entire load of debris was Styrofoam, most of it from cheaply made Asian fishing floats that leak tiny pellets.
“You walk up from the shore into the salal and see it in the shore, with trees growing through it,” he said. “Future anthropologists digging here might call it the Plasto-scene era.”
At their peak, shore workers were collecting up to 10 tonnes per day, loading the debris into bags of about 320 kilograms each — the capacity of the helicopter — and placing them on beaches or rocky headlands.
Daily morning meetings co-ordinated beach workers, ship and tender crews, helicopter lifts and barge locations. A drone was used to do further reconnaissance along the coast, looking for crucial debris sites.
“We went dawn to dusk, 12-hour days, and there were no injuries,” Smith said. “We all felt we were taking part in something so positive. When a bag was lifted it was pure jubilation.”
Smith said the tour ship operators and crew — many of them scientists — are currently preparing a report for the provincial government. By mid-November a complete breakdown the project is expected to outline in detail where the debris is coming from and why, what the province and Canada can do, and the advocacy needed to stem the debris from other countries.
Smith noted much of the plastics picked up were old, some likely from a larger debris field in the Pacific related to the Japanese tsunami in 2011.
They even found a message in a plastic bottle hurled off the shore of western Vancouver Island in 2003. “It was from someone having a bad day, nothing noteworthy,” Smith said.
Despite the massive haul, the ship operators felt they only managed a small dent in the problem. With their tourism seasons possibly on hold again next season, Smith said operators would welcome the opportunity to do it again.
“We all felt it was a beautiful thing — competing colleagues working toward a common goal,” he said.
Doug Neasloss, stewardship director with the Kitasoo-Xai’Xais Nation, said the initiative provided a rare opportunity.
“Marine debris is an ongoing challenge and a removal initiative of this scale — to clean up a large, remote coastline — is an undertaking that will provide significant environmental benefit to Kitasoo/Xai’Xais territory and beyond,” he said.
The Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C. includes seven companies, most of which are based on Vancouver Island.
The key players in the project included Russell Markell of Outer Shores Expeditions in Mill Bay; Ross Campbell of Mothership Adventures on Sointula Island; Comox-based Eric Boyum of Ocean Adventures Co.; and Randy Burts of Bluewater Adventures. Other key personnel included Scott Benton of the Wilderness Tourism Association, and Katherine MacRae of the Bear Viewing Association of B.C.
my small self... like a book amongst the many on a shelf
A win-win-win story that seems best here, though it could have gone in the covid thread, or one of the environment threads. Kudos to our provincial government for funding an effort that cleaned up 127 tonnes of marine debris from very remote areas and provided employment to tour boat operators, their staff, and some First Nations communities, who would otherwise have had almost zero revenue in this summer of no tourism.
Tour ship operators collect 127 tonnes of marine debris
Tour ship companies anchored by the pandemic traded their usual tourists for mountains of trash, collecting 127 tonnes of marine waste along the central coast of British Columbia.
The effort involved the captains and crew of the Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C., nine sailing ships, members of six First Nations, 18 Zodiac vessels, a helicopter and a massive barge.
Among the items picked from remote shores were massive chunks of Styrofoam, kilometres of plastic rope, fishing floats, bottles, gas cans and bundles of “ghost” fishing nets that kill and injure fish, whales, birds and other marine animals.
Over 42 days and 1,000 kilometres of coast line, the project collected enough to twice fill a hockey-rink sized barge with bags of debris piled like small mountains. It was offloaded at Port Hardy and trucked to 7-mile Landfill, a former mine near Port McNeill.
The $3.5-million cleanup, financed by the provincial government’s Clean Coast Clean Waters Fund, far exceeded expectations.
Kevin Smith, captain of Victoria-based Maple Leaf Adventures and team lead, said the cleanup saved the tourism companies, whose season was cancelled because of COVID-19, and provided employment for more than 100 crew and Indigenous community members. The final grab of trash also greatly surpassed initial estimates of 20 to 30 tonnes.
“This was an industrial-sized cleanup, something that’s never been done before, and it was an incredible team effort,” Smith said.
“It’s not like walking along Long Beach. This is the wild side of the coast pummeled by storms. It’s rugged, steep, treacherous. We’re moving enormous logs and finding drift netting that’s a half a mile long, and cutting it into sections to get it out.”
The so-called ghost nets can entangle whales, fish and birds, which sink and die. The nets are known to refloat after the animals rot away, again posing a threat.
Smith said about two thirds of the entire load of debris was Styrofoam, most of it from cheaply made Asian fishing floats that leak tiny pellets.
“You walk up from the shore into the salal and see it in the shore, with trees growing through it,” he said. “Future anthropologists digging here might call it the Plasto-scene era.”
At their peak, shore workers were collecting up to 10 tonnes per day, loading the debris into bags of about 320 kilograms each — the capacity of the helicopter — and placing them on beaches or rocky headlands.
Daily morning meetings co-ordinated beach workers, ship and tender crews, helicopter lifts and barge locations. A drone was used to do further reconnaissance along the coast, looking for crucial debris sites.
“We went dawn to dusk, 12-hour days, and there were no injuries,” Smith said. “We all felt we were taking part in something so positive. When a bag was lifted it was pure jubilation.”
Smith said the tour ship operators and crew — many of them scientists — are currently preparing a report for the provincial government. By mid-November a complete breakdown the project is expected to outline in detail where the debris is coming from and why, what the province and Canada can do, and the advocacy needed to stem the debris from other countries.
Smith noted much of the plastics picked up were old, some likely from a larger debris field in the Pacific related to the Japanese tsunami in 2011.
They even found a message in a plastic bottle hurled off the shore of western Vancouver Island in 2003. “It was from someone having a bad day, nothing noteworthy,” Smith said.
Despite the massive haul, the ship operators felt they only managed a small dent in the problem. With their tourism seasons possibly on hold again next season, Smith said operators would welcome the opportunity to do it again.
“We all felt it was a beautiful thing — competing colleagues working toward a common goal,” he said.
Doug Neasloss, stewardship director with the Kitasoo-Xai’Xais Nation, said the initiative provided a rare opportunity.
“Marine debris is an ongoing challenge and a removal initiative of this scale — to clean up a large, remote coastline — is an undertaking that will provide significant environmental benefit to Kitasoo/Xai’Xais territory and beyond,” he said.
The Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C. includes seven companies, most of which are based on Vancouver Island.
The key players in the project included Russell Markell of Outer Shores Expeditions in Mill Bay; Ross Campbell of Mothership Adventures on Sointula Island; Comox-based Eric Boyum of Ocean Adventures Co.; and Randy Burts of Bluewater Adventures. Other key personnel included Scott Benton of the Wilderness Tourism Association, and Katherine MacRae of the Bear Viewing Association of B.C.
Fantastic!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Thank you for sharing. Loved reading this article.
It's so wonderful to see what people can accomplish in difficult times, especially when they band together for it and not just do it for their own benefit.
This could also be placed in the 60 or so environmental threads as well...
"He said it was the first detached reef of that size to be
discovered in over 120 years and that it was thriving with a "blizzard
of fish" in a healthy ecosystem."
This is good new indeed!
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
This could also be placed in the 60 or so environmental threads as well...
"He said it was the first detached reef of that size to be
discovered in over 120 years and that it was thriving with a "blizzard
of fish" in a healthy ecosystem."
This is good new indeed!
yes it is good news. but now its known we will find a way to destroy it.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
This could also be placed in the 60 or so environmental threads as well...
"He said it was the first detached reef of that size to be
discovered in over 120 years and that it was thriving with a "blizzard
of fish" in a healthy ecosystem."
This is good new indeed!
yes it is good news. but now its known we will find a way to destroy it.
This could also be placed in the 60 or so environmental threads as well...
"He said it was the first detached reef of that size to be
discovered in over 120 years and that it was thriving with a "blizzard
of fish" in a healthy ecosystem."
This is good new indeed!
It feels like a win for the planet, albeit a small one.
It's just such a good news story...had to share. Imagine being separated like that from your siblings. Stay safe.
Foster Dad, 29, Adopts 5 Siblings After Refusing to Keep Them Separated: 'They Give Me Purpose'
"They're some of the best kids I've had," says Robert Carter, who became a foster parent after he was separated from his own siblings in foster care years ago
You could be forgiven for thinking that 2020 was little more than a slow-motion train wreck broken up into 365 individual units. But if you’re a regular RTBC reader, you know that’s not true. Yes, it was a most difficult year. But it was also a year of problems solved, hopes sustained and seemingly insurmountable challenges met. We reported on literally hundreds of good things that happened this year, from the earth-shaking to the arcane. Here are 112 of the highlights.
The world is gaining two million acres of leafy cover per year, an increase of about five percent since 2000, equivalent to the leaf area of all the Amazon rainforests.
The hole in the ozone layer is expected to heal completely by 2030 in the northern hemisphere and mid-latitudes, by 2050 in the southern hemisphere and by 2060 at the poles.
In a 25 year period, homicides in North America and Western Europe fell by 46 percent.
In 2016, the only country in Europe to reimburse for PrEP, the once-a-day pill that can prevent HIV, was France. Today, the national health systems of 14 European countries reimburse for PrEP.
After California learned that many college students drop out because they can’t afford relatively small expenses, it started offering them up to $1,500 in aid. Now 70% of them graduate.
The number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty was 88% in 1981. By 2015 it had fallen to 0.7%.
A $2.75 billion project is covering the radiation-contaminated farmland in Fukushima with solar and wind farms that will produce 600 megawatts of electricity –– two-thirds as much as a nuclear plant.
A German organization has helped 3,200 people understand how it feels to be disabled by having them grocery shop while wearing vision-obscuring goggles and movement-constricting vests.
Dirty Dancing somehow led to this strange story my wife likes to tell about how she and a couple of her girlfriends were driving somewhere and had a big balloon on a string tied to the car and had it trailing along. They called the Balloon "Swayze" and when the string broke, Swayze went flying off into the sky and they all cried out, "Swaaaaaaayze!"
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Dirty Dancing somehow led to this strange story my wife likes to tell about how she and a couple of her girlfriends were driving somewhere and had a big balloon on a string tied to the car and had it trailing along. They called the Balloon "Swayze" and when the string broke, Swayze went flying off into the sky and they all cried out, "Swaaaaaaayze!"
Comments
Wow! Great story, good catch, lucky kid!!!
2013 Wrigley 2014 St. Paul 2016 Fenway, Fenway, Wrigley, Wrigley 2018 Missoula, Wrigley, Wrigley 2021 Asbury Park 2022 St Louis 2023 Austin, Austin
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/we-ll-take-care-of-you-tennessee-kroger-gives-job-to-woman-who-slept-in-the-store-s-parking-lot/ar-BB18DEh3?ocid=msedgntp
Wonderful! Good news is always welcome these days!
www.headstonesband.com
www.headstonesband.com
You'll love it!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/7-year-old-boy-donates-trucks-full-of-covid-19-supplies-to-south-dakota-reservation/ar-BB19y191?ocid=msedgntp
https://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/tour-ship-operators-collect-127-tonnes-of-marine-debris-1.24222545
Tour ship operators collect 127 tonnes of marine debris
Tour ship companies anchored by the pandemic traded their usual tourists for mountains of trash, collecting 127 tonnes of marine waste along the central coast of British Columbia.
The effort involved the captains and crew of the Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C., nine sailing ships, members of six First Nations, 18 Zodiac vessels, a helicopter and a massive barge.
Among the items picked from remote shores were massive chunks of Styrofoam, kilometres of plastic rope, fishing floats, bottles, gas cans and bundles of “ghost” fishing nets that kill and injure fish, whales, birds and other marine animals.
Over 42 days and 1,000 kilometres of coast line, the project collected enough to twice fill a hockey-rink sized barge with bags of debris piled like small mountains. It was offloaded at Port Hardy and trucked to 7-mile Landfill, a former mine near Port McNeill.
The $3.5-million cleanup, financed by the provincial government’s Clean Coast Clean Waters Fund, far exceeded expectations.
Kevin Smith, captain of Victoria-based Maple Leaf Adventures and team lead, said the cleanup saved the tourism companies, whose season was cancelled because of COVID-19, and provided employment for more than 100 crew and Indigenous community members. The final grab of trash also greatly surpassed initial estimates of 20 to 30 tonnes.
“This was an industrial-sized cleanup, something that’s never been done before, and it was an incredible team effort,” Smith said.
“It’s not like walking along Long Beach. This is the wild side of the coast pummeled by storms. It’s rugged, steep, treacherous. We’re moving enormous logs and finding drift netting that’s a half a mile long, and cutting it into sections to get it out.”
The so-called ghost nets can entangle whales, fish and birds, which sink and die. The nets are known to refloat after the animals rot away, again posing a threat.
Smith said about two thirds of the entire load of debris was Styrofoam, most of it from cheaply made Asian fishing floats that leak tiny pellets.
“You walk up from the shore into the salal and see it in the shore, with trees growing through it,” he said. “Future anthropologists digging here might call it the Plasto-scene era.”
At their peak, shore workers were collecting up to 10 tonnes per day, loading the debris into bags of about 320 kilograms each — the capacity of the helicopter — and placing them on beaches or rocky headlands.
Daily morning meetings co-ordinated beach workers, ship and tender crews, helicopter lifts and barge locations. A drone was used to do further reconnaissance along the coast, looking for crucial debris sites.
“We went dawn to dusk, 12-hour days, and there were no injuries,” Smith said. “We all felt we were taking part in something so positive. When a bag was lifted it was pure jubilation.”
Smith said the tour ship operators and crew — many of them scientists — are currently preparing a report for the provincial government. By mid-November a complete breakdown the project is expected to outline in detail where the debris is coming from and why, what the province and Canada can do, and the advocacy needed to stem the debris from other countries.
Smith noted much of the plastics picked up were old, some likely from a larger debris field in the Pacific related to the Japanese tsunami in 2011.
They even found a message in a plastic bottle hurled off the shore of western Vancouver Island in 2003. “It was from someone having a bad day, nothing noteworthy,” Smith said.
Despite the massive haul, the ship operators felt they only managed a small dent in the problem. With their tourism seasons possibly on hold again next season, Smith said operators would welcome the opportunity to do it again.
“We all felt it was a beautiful thing — competing colleagues working toward a common goal,” he said.
Doug Neasloss, stewardship director with the Kitasoo-Xai’Xais Nation, said the initiative provided a rare opportunity.
“Marine debris is an ongoing challenge and a removal initiative of this scale — to clean up a large, remote coastline — is an undertaking that will provide significant environmental benefit to Kitasoo/Xai’Xais territory and beyond,” he said.
The Small Ship Tour Operators Association of B.C. includes seven companies, most of which are based on Vancouver Island.
The key players in the project included Russell Markell of Outer Shores Expeditions in Mill Bay; Ross Campbell of Mothership Adventures on Sointula Island; Comox-based Eric Boyum of Ocean Adventures Co.; and Randy Burts of Bluewater Adventures. Other key personnel included Scott Benton of the Wilderness Tourism Association, and Katherine MacRae of the Bear Viewing Association of B.C.
Fantastic!
New coral reef taller than Eiffel Tower found off Australian coast
https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/coral-reef-1.5781424?fbclid=IwAR3WE4EfTVZj1UFxNE4vz_xuQ0nOI4bk7xU7ec7VWAtyybtPv8uTsFuO0XM
This could also be placed in the 60 or so environmental threads as well...
yes it is good news. but now its known we will find a way to destroy it.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
The Year in Cheer
112 bits of good news that kept us sane in 2020.
You could be forgiven for thinking that 2020 was little more than a slow-motion train wreck broken up into 365 individual units. But if you’re a regular RTBC reader, you know that’s not true. Yes, it was a most difficult year. But it was also a year of problems solved, hopes sustained and seemingly insurmountable challenges met. We reported on literally hundreds of good things that happened this year, from the earth-shaking to the arcane. Here are 112 of the highlights.
More than two-thirds of all the money being invested in energy is now going to renewables.
Australia is on track to eradicate transmission of HIV by the end of this decade.
The world is gaining two million acres of leafy cover per year, an increase of about five percent since 2000, equivalent to the leaf area of all the Amazon rainforests.
The hole in the ozone layer is expected to heal completely by 2030 in the northern hemisphere and mid-latitudes, by 2050 in the southern hemisphere and by 2060 at the poles.
In a 25 year period, homicides in North America and Western Europe fell by 46 percent.
In 2016, the only country in Europe to reimburse for PrEP, the once-a-day pill that can prevent HIV, was France. Today, the national health systems of 14 European countries reimburse for PrEP.
After California learned that many college students drop out because they can’t afford relatively small expenses, it started offering them up to $1,500 in aid. Now 70% of them graduate.
The number of Chinese people living in extreme poverty was 88% in 1981. By 2015 it had fallen to 0.7%.
A $2.75 billion project is covering the radiation-contaminated farmland in Fukushima with solar and wind farms that will produce 600 megawatts of electricity –– two-thirds as much as a nuclear plant.
A German organization has helped 3,200 people understand how it feels to be disabled by having them grocery shop while wearing vision-obscuring goggles and movement-constricting vests.
Article continues here: https://reasonstobecheerful.world/the-year-in-cheer/
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Did Johnny and baby stay together?